‘Branches From The Same Tree’ A Guest Post By Monty Marsden

I was invited to take part in this great blog tour, by the lovely Yasemin Turan from Aria Fiction.

Earlier promotional posts for Hunted have met with a very positive response and I can’t wait for the book to get to the top of my own reading list! Why not take time to visit some of the other stops on the tour – but only after you have taken a few moments to check out this excellent guest post from the book’s author, Monty Marsden.

…

‘HUNTED‘

Seven years ago, psychiatrist Dr Claps assisted police in capturing Giacomo Riondino, a man accused of abducting, torturing and murdering two women. On arrest, tests had revealed that Riondino suffered from a rare and disturbing psychiatric condition and was sectioned.

Six years later, Riondino is on the run after escaping from a rehabilitation centre, leaving a trail of bloody murders his wake.

It is now a case for expert profiler Dr Claps and Commissioner Sensi to work together to track Riondino down before he kills again. Time is running out and the killer may be much closer than it seems…

Clicking on the book’s cover image will link you directly with it’s Amazon listing.

I am a Tuscan by birth, growing up in Milan, where I studied medicine and where I still work.

I began writing just for fun some 16 years ago, although I have had a passion for literature and an admiration for many authors, since I was a child. I have been writing more regularly for about the last seven years.

I currently live in the province of Bergamo, with my wife and four children.

…

Always write with passion; with your mind and with your heart. Never forget who you are writing for, but don’t write just to get your reader’s approval.

…

BRANCHESFROMTHESAMETREE

First of all I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to talk about Hunted on your blog.

Back when I had the idea of writing this novel, I knew I wanted to include Criminal Profiler, Claps, who was the protagonist of my previous novel, Missing. I also knew I wanted to write about the hunt for a ruthless killer; a killer that I wanted to differ from the traditional stereotype of the usual serial killer – one that would allow me to create a character with a complex and conflicting mind… For this reason I opted for a psychiatric condition, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), AKA multiple personalities. In Hunted, Giacomo Riondino is affected by this disorder, and one of his personalities is a ruthless killer…

When Riondino was previously arrested for killing three women, he was judged not punishable because of his psychiatric illness and sent to a state hospital for the criminally insane. After seven years of therapy he was transferred to a social rehabilitation community. But Riondino manages to escape from the facility leaving a trail of blood in his path. It is Claps’ duty to hunt him down, as he had contributed to his arrest those seven years earlier…

In the real world, DID is a particularly rare disease, and is even more ‘incredible’ than the way it’s presented in characters in books or movies: to the point that, to better represent it, I reference the real case of Billy Milligan, arrested in the USA for the kidnapping and sexual abuse of three university students. Billy (the better known case of DID to this day) had 24 personalities of both genders, young and old and one of them was even able to talk only in Slavic.

Giacomo Riondino, my purely imaginary character, has only 10 instead, among which there is a woman, Julia, and a child, as well as the ruthless killer of course. As is usual in the seldom real cases, all of these personalities interact and talk to each other in their own dimension in Riondino’s mind, showing different behaviors, inclinations and aspirations that can even lead to violent discord between personalities. But Claps, who is hunting Riondino, will have to be very careful, as even the most ‘innocent’ seeming personalities are still branches from the same tree…

Yvonne

I can’t remember a time, even as a child, when I haven’t been passionate about books and reading.
I began blogging, when I realised just how many other people out there shared my passion for the written word and I have been continually amazed at the wealth of books that are available and the amount of great new friends I have made, from literally 'The Four Corners Of The World'.

4 comments

Ooo…. I must share this with my younger daughter (actually, both of my daughters would probably be interested)! I recently saw a film in which a character had this disorder. It’s a mystifying and creepy disease!

Thanks to the author for this fascinating post and to you, Yvonne, for sharing it with us.

What an intriguing and disturbing premise Monty offers up for this story, I’m going to be looking over my shoulder all the time I am reading it!

Both hubbie and myself are Gemini’s, so between us we already have four personalities. That’s bad enough sometimes, believe you me!

I thought that the final paragraph of the post was the most poignant, where Monty describes all the various personalities interacting and talking to each other inside the sufferer’s mind. That must be so scary, unless of course, there are no truly lucid moments when a victim realises what is happening to them. I shall be checking out the condition in more detail now!